You guys today I’ve got the most memorable in a home kitchen, (non) Slow Cooker Refried Beans recipe to share with you. Try to look past how they look and focus on the fact that with 9 pretty common ingredients and 8 hours in the crock pot… you can make your quite own refried beans. Are you sold? Did I mention you do it all in a slow cooker (okay and a pan) and that they are WAY better than restaurant refried beans?

CONFESSION: I’m a pretty picky person when it comes to refried beans.

They have to be smooth, with a little bit of bean throughout. I’m prefer the darker colored refried beans… some restaurants serve these light colored ones which always has me confused as to what beans those truly are.

Oh and if you haven’t noticed, I’m on a little Cinco de Mayo kick as of lately. I have a few Cinco-esque recipes up my sleeve and it all started with these margaritas. So in the spirit of this time of year and because a regular at dinner has only been bothering me to make refried beans for like eight years now. I finally decided to do it. I mean, not because he begged me to or anything. Hey, I don’t want him to think he can simply demand things and get his way. So, yeah… eight years it is. Take that Pat.

We stopped buying the canned refried beans a loooong time ago. Organic or not, it’s that whole congealed fat along of the perfectly can-shaped blob-called-beans that I find utterly grody. Please don’t misunderstand… I didn’t say that I don’t like fat… no-no that would be CRAZY… because in fact there’s actually lard in this dish. Lard… truly, could there be a worser name for something so glorious {yeah I said worser}? All my bacon fat-savers know what I mean!! Lard is used for many savory things like biscuits, carnitas and refried bean too… seriously, lard IS the new butter. Okay maybe not… but it’s something, boy is it ever. The smell of anything cooking in lard is standout!

Dice up an onion. White or yellow… doesn’t truly matter.

Then chop up a good sized green bell pepper…

…And 1 whole jalapeno. I made the mistake of using my thumbs to scrape out the ribs and seeds… lemme only tell you it burned like something fierce under my thumbnails. Like for HOURS.

Lastly, smash, peel and mince up 5 cloves of garlic.

HELLLOOOO lard. I had to laugh when my oldest daughter walked by and said “hey is that a tub of lard?!” I was quite offended until I realized it was the actual tub. of. lard. she was talking about. Ha-ha-he-he… ummm awkward.

Melt two tablespoons of lard into a 10-inch skillet on medium heat.

Throw in the peppers, onions and jalapeno.

Season with only a smidgen of salt. The salt will draw out the water and help soften the vegetables {I don’t know how I know this, but only go with it}… but don’t add too much because we’ll salt at the end of the bean making process.

This one is for someone at the table: beans beans the musical fruit, the more you eat… yeah. I won’t go on, but he bet me that I wouldn’t put that song in this post. So BOO-YA Pat!! Now you have to give me a 30 minute massage.

Before I add the beans to the crock pot, I go through them with a fine-toothed comb. You’ll find all sorts of things like grody beans, dirty beans and oh yeah… a rock. Solid.

Once the coast was clear, I added the beans to my crock pot.

Then I season them with a quarter teaspoon of cumin…

Then an 1/8th teaspoon of ground chipotle powder.

Now the peppers and onions are soft and starting to brown…

Now I’d say it’s a good time to add in that minced garlic.

Cook for a minute or two before removing the pan from the heat.

And adding it on top of the perfectly inspected pinto beans.

Cover with 8 cups of water and stir it up a bit, for funsies. Cover and cook on HIGH heat for 8 hours. No need to lift the lid, stir or baby sit these. They take care of themselves all on their own!

After the 8 hours they look like this. Soft, plump and ready to be blitzed.

With your hand protected by oven mitts, lift out the crock pot “pot” and pour the beans and any juices into a strainer that is resting in a large bowl.

DO NOT throw away those handsome Slow Cooker Refried Beans juices. I’ll add anywhere from a 1/4 cup to 1/2 cup of the juices back into the beans. It all only truly depends on how thin or “loose” you want your beans to be, so go slow.

If you have one of those handy-dandy immersion blenders… this is another one of those recipes where it’ll come in handy. Work your way through the beans until only about blended.

When there’s still a few beans left to blend, is when I like to season the Slow Cooker Refried Beans. You don’t want to add the salt to the crock pot because rumor has it, that it will make the beans tough and then you’ve simply wasted 8 hours… and a lot of beans.

Blend a little bit more and then stir with a spatula to make sure that salt is evenly spread out through the beans.

Boom. You’re done.

Perfectly in a home kitchen Slow Cooker Refried Beans {minus the refried part} that are simply standout. This earns a repeat em’ in our house and put them on everything! Heck we use our tortillas chips and these beans act as as a dip! Worth the pot you’ll never buy canned again!

Yes! Simply store in an airtight, freezer safe container for up to 3 months. Reheat low and slow in a skillet or microwave.